Hayton of Corycus
Hethum of Korykos (* 1230/45; † not before 1309), also Hayt ( h) on of Korykos, Hayton of Lampron, French Héthoum de Korikos, Old French Hayton you Corc, latin Hayton dominus Churchi ( with other name variants), was a Armenian historian and Lord of Korykos.
Life
He was the son of the Baron of Oschin Korykos († 1265 ) and his wife Alix of Lampron. He played thanks to his family connections to the royal family in the history of the Christian kingdom of Lesser Armenia an influential role. His father was a younger brother of King Hethums I, who had in 1226 founded the Armenian dynasty of Hethumiden. Hethum of Korykos was thus also an uncle of the second degree of the disputing his time and with his active participation for the throne grandson Hethums I, as well as an uncle third degree of Leon IV († 1307 ), for whose throne he championed. His daughter Zabel ( Isabella ) married the grandson Hethums I., Oschin III. Leon IV of 1307-1320 succeeded as king.
1299 undertook Hethum of Korykos a pilgrimage to France to redeem a Marie vows. The original intention to resign after the return of the world and join a monastery, he put on first in order to put yourself in the critical, marked by the inner and outer Thronzwistigkeiten attacks the Islamic Mamluks location of the kingdom for the interests of his country. 1305 he moved then to Cyprus in the Premonstratensian monastery Bellapais back. According to his own account, his retreat was made possible by an improvement in the political situation that had partially stabilized, at least in foreign policy after beating the elite forces of the Mamluk Sultan with subsequent ceasefire. Cypriot chroniclers, however, that he had to flee from Lesser Armenia due to its activity against Hethum II, who served as regent for Leon IV since 1301.
His stay in Bellapais, however, was short-lived. Already in 1307 he was in Poitiers, where Pope Clement V prior to fixation of the Curia in Avignon resided most of the time, and dictated by order of the Pope to support a crusade project its description and history of Asia, the Flor de la terre estoires of d ' Orient. His stay also served to represent the curia in the dispute over the crown of Cyprus against the envoy of Henry II of Lusignan the run by his brother Amalric of Tyre deposed Henry. After returning from France he spent a few days in Cyprus and then returned to Lesser Armenia, where in the meantime his opponent Hethum II († 1307 ) had been murdered. Other political activities are assigned for 1308/1309: 1308 he brought Amalric of Tyre, a letter from Pope Clement V and for 1309 is attested by Cypriot chronicler, that he continued to operate the thing Amalric against Henry. His date of death is not known in the earlier research ( Kohler) represented assumption that he was not to identify with a " Hayton, Armeniorum dux generalis " at the Council of Adana ( 1314), has because of the frequency of the person's name and the name as " dux generalis " contradiction found.
The pile of the estoires de la terre d' Orient
The four books in the pile of the estoires provide a geographic (Book I) and historical (Book II ) Description of Asia, a History of the Mongols (Book III) and a crusade plan for the conquest of the Holy Land (Book IV), for which the Mongols as allies should be obtained. Especially for the third book on the history of the Mongols are Hethum three resources: " Tales of the Tartars " ( estoires of the Tartars, which he for the time to Mangu Khan ( until about 1295) is based, then for the subsequent period stories of his great-uncle Hethum I, who often told his sons and nephews from his life and can write the narrative through it did, and eventually own for the most recent time Hethums experience that he could play on their own testimony. Hethum knew beyond specifically to crusade history and Western sources, which he describes as " tales of Godfrey of Bouillon " and a " book of the conquest of the Holy Land ," also has been suggested that he was known with travel reports as particularly those of John de Plano Carpini and Marco Polo on the basis of substantive parallels might have been.
The circumstances of the minutes of the nap of the estoires are each explained in Explicit French and the Latin version of the fourth book. After dictated Hethum the of himself " compiled " ( compiled ) working on behalf of the Pope at Poitiers in French, without the assistance of written drafts ( sans note ne exemplaire ) a Nicolas Faulcon - an otherwise historically no further issues highlighted Premonstratensian from Poitiers - who the French transcript then translated into Latin. The translation was the Latin Explicit According completed in August 1307 and the French Explicit According to the work in 1307 presented to the Pope. Whether the phrase " sans note exemplaire ne " ( " absque nota immersive aliquo examplary " ) refers to the entire work, or only on the crusade project of the fourth book, is questionable due to the richness of the first three books. As a member of the Armenian aristocracy, who had taken over under the influence of " Frankish " Crusaders States has long French customs and legal customs and was in a particularly narrow, through political alliances and selective marriage policy to well-established relationship with the poitevinischen rule of the Lusignan Cyprus, Hethum was with the French language in any case sufficiently trusted to manage his dictation to Nicolas Faulcon.
The intention to forge an alliance with the Mongols against the common Islamic enemy, already the predecessor Clement V had since Innocent IV busy and led to embassies but scarcely concrete commitments. In connection with the jubilee year 1300, the hopes for a re-conquest of the Holy Land for a short time into a kind of " mass hysteria " (Hans E. Mayer) had increased, and also prophecies of a saving role of the Mongols had played a role. Clement V had himself just been completed in the spring of 1307 his Italian crusade against the followers of cult leader Fra Dolcino, a process of more local importance, and now made in association with Philip IV of France it to dissolve the Order of the Templars of heresy and to let confiscate his huge fortune. Clement V ordered the compilation of his reign except the opinion Hethums at least four more Kreuzzugsmoranden, 1305 and 1309 by Ramon Llull, 1306 by Pierre Dubois and 1314 by Guillaume de Nogaret, the confiscation of Templar assets strongly with the financial requirements for the conquest of the Holy country justified. Against this background it can be seen that Hethum as a trusted expert on the situation in the Mongol Il- khanat of Persia, the last since the collapse of the Mongol empire in question Mongol allies, was charged with his report by the Pope. The project came to nothing, but owes them at least the emergence of Hethums font, which has remained an invaluable source for the history of the Mongols and small Armenia in the 13th and early 14th century due to its good knowledge of the conditions treated.
Tradition of the pile of the estoires
The plant is obtained in a total of 58 manuscripts, distributed according to their versions of the text as follows:
- 24 French manuscripts, of which 18 with the first version Faulcons, five with the written 1351 by Jean le Long back-translation from the Latin, and three each with independent back translations of unknown author.
- 32 manuscripts with the Latin translation Faulcons (two of which no actual witnesses, but notes and variant directories).
- A handwriting with Spanish translation from the French Faulcons for Juan Fernández de Heredia (1377-1396 Grand Master of the Order of St. John ).
- An English manuscript by an unknown author in the 16th century, presumably for Henry VIII, translated from the French Faulcons.
In addition, until the end of the 16th century, the Editio princeps of the French original version Faulcons (Paris 1510, several times reprinted ), several prints of his Latin translation ( Haguenau 1529, Basel 1532, Helmstedt 1585 ), the Editio princeps of the French re-translation of Jean le Long ( Paris 1529), an independent from the English handwritten version print an English translation by Richard Pynson (London, 1520 ), as well as prints in German (Strasbourg 1534), Dutch (Antwerp 1563), Italian (Venice 1559, Venice: Horologgi, 1562 Venice: Sansovino, 1562) and Spanish ( Cordoba 1595 ).
Other works Hethums
Hethum is also a small Armenian written chronology of Armenia attributed since the 19th century, which covers the period 1076-1308. Other Works attributed to him occasionally ( a commentary on the Apocalypse of John, one handed down in several Hethumhandschriften crusade Memorial and Exordium Jerosolimitani Hospitalis ac Ordinis ) be denied to him by the research today.